AVON, Ind. — Paula Gholson woke up Friday morning with the same questions that have filled her mind every day for the past five years, all of them revolve around wondering if her daughter's killer will ever be found and brought to justice.
"It never goes away," said Gholson.
Friday marks five years since Gholson's daughter, 30-year-old Najah Ferrell, disappeared.
Police say the mother of two, who was also a foster mom and lived in Avon, never showed up for work that morning.
When Ferrell didn't show up to get her foster kids from school later that same day, that's when her mother called police.
"I knew something was wrong, because it was not Najah," said Gholson.
A week later, police found Ferrell's car on the northwest side of Indianapolis, along with some of her belongings scattered on Interstate 65.
Her purse and phone were not among them.
"Never recovered. Never recovered," said Gholson.
A month later, men fishing in a pond near Crown Point, 100 miles north of Avon, found a severed foot. Tests revealed it came from the body of someone who had already died.
DNA tests revealed it belonged to Najah Ferrell.
"I would never want a family to experience anything like this and especially the way that we have," said Gholson, who explained at the time of her daughter's disappearance, Ferrell was living with her fiancé, but had recently called off the engagement.
After Ferrell went missing, Gholson said the fiancé told her that Ferrell had texted him that same morning after she left for work.
Gholson questions if her daughter even left the house that day.
"The children still saw her work shoes at the house. They saw her coat that was there," Gholson said.
In the past five years, the case has been featured nationally both on television and on podcasts.
None of it has brought any answers to Ferrell's mother or Ferrell's two young sons, now 11 and 17.
"We don't have closure," said Gholson, who believes someone close to her daughter knows what really happened to her.
"Please, have the courage to stand up and to help someone else. Don't take that to your grave," Gholson pleaded with whoever might be watching her interview on television.
It's not just herself Gholson is pleading for, it's for the sake of her two grandsons - children who have lived every day for five years without their mom and without any idea about what happened to her or why.